


Sketch

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2019-09-29 04:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17196818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Jack teaches David to draw.





	Sketch

Davey’s sketchbook was as full as it was uninspiring. Jack whistled softly as he reached the end of it.

“You um… really like apples and flower vases, huh?” Jack asked. Clearly he was looking for something nice to say, and Davey’s inner perfectionist (which was, after all, a big part of him) cried out in exaggerated agony.

“Not apples and vases. It…um… isn’t plural. They’re all the same apple and the same vase.”

“Oh. Yeah. Kind of figured. Well, good job. Guess you captured your apple and your vase. Hey, the last apple’s got a shadow and everything!” Jack clapped Davey on the back.

“It was either an art course or a music course,” Davey hastened to explain. “And I couldn’t…”

“You’re great at singing!”

“Jack, no!”

Jack’s enthusiasm that made Davey feel warm all the way down to his toes, and even more glad hat he hadn’t chosen the music class. That wasn’t to say that art class was going any better, but at least nobody paid much attention to him in that class.

“I can’t draw,” Davey whispered, as if it were a great secret. He tried to ignore how Jack looked at him when he said that, all gentle and kind of fond and… No. Davey had not come to see Jack Kelly in order to get drunk off of his presence, no matter how easy it might be to do. He wanted clear, simple advice, and that was that. Jack’s hand on his shoulder was distracting, but then again, it always was.

“Sure you can. Ain’t nothing wrong with that apple. Looks just about ready to eat.”

“I had to draw the same apple about fifty times to get to that,” Davey pointed out. “And I don’t think the teacher is going to want the final project to be something simple, like an apple.”

Jack flipped through Davey’s sketchbook again, his brow creased in thought.

“You know what’s kinda funny?” Jack asked, once he’d finished.

“The way my first attempt at drawing a vase is lopsided?”

“Nah, hearing a kid who convinced me we could go up against the World sayin’ he can’t do a little thing like draw a picture for a class. Come on. So, I’m guessing you’re doin’ objects at this point, not people or landscapes or nothing like that.”

“I’m doing an apple and vase.”

“Objects! So, we just gotta find you an object that means something, and start working on that. Don’t gotta be difficult. You gotta think of something… I dunno, something important to somebody.”

“I can’t draw Santa Fe.”

Jack covered his mouth, but that didn’t keep him from laughing.

“But think about the people you knows,” Jack hastened to explain. “How many of us don’t got almost nothin’? So… So sketch Race’s cigar, or Spot’s sling shot. Hell, choose one of the bunks at the lodging house, and draw one of them, or draw a picture of my toothbrush. I’ve had that toothbrush going on four years. That’s a brush with stories to tell. Draw up fifty copies of one of those, till you get one you likes, then use your words to explain it. Words is something you’re good with.”

Jack’s hands were on Davey’s shoulder as he spoke, kneading into the flesh there.

“I think I have an idea,” Davey said suddenly.

-–——

It took a few days, and it was a rather strange art project. It took a lot of advice from Jack, and a lot of laughably bad drafts, but at least Davey got it done on time.

It was a sketch of a a sketch, or rather a sketch book, Jack’s sketchbook to be specific. A pencil, sharpened to almost nothing and with the eraser chewed off, sat next to it, casting a shadow on the page.

“How’re you going to caption it?” Jack asked, thinking of his own political cartoons, which were technically simpler than most of his art, but gained insurmountable strength through the use of a choice sentence or two.

“An artist’s tools,” Davey said, writing the words under the page as he spoke. “With this he can make anything.”


End file.
